Been thinking about how north star metrics actually work in practice.
Seems like when teams really buy into one metric, it starts influencing decisions without anyone explicitly saying so. Product choices, marketing spend, even hiring priorities.
Wondering if this invisible alignment is the real value, not just the measurement itself.
True that it guides every decision you make
Ran campaigns for a meditation app where our north star was daily active users. Product team started building habit features without us asking. Dev team prioritized push notification fixes. Even support knew to focus on onboarding issues.
Nobody had meetings about it. The metric just became this shared language that made everyone point in the same direction.
Saw the opposite happen too. Worked with a team that tracked revenue but product cared about engagement. Total mess. Every decision became a debate.
Marketing campaigns become way easier when everyone cares about the same number.
I can focus ad spend on users who move that metric instead of arguing with product about what quality means. Landing pages write themselves when you know exactly what behavior you want.
The metric becomes your filter for every choice.
The metric serves as a guide for where resources go.
In my experience with apps focusing on monthly revenue per user, teams began prioritizing user quality instead of chasing installs.
Budget discussions were straightforward and feature requests aligned with our goals. Customer success teams also knew which users to focus on.
Without a unified metric, teams often chase different targets and growth can stagnate.
Yeah we had teams pulling in different directions until we picked one metric. Made my job way simpler.